Our Opinion: Take Cosby’s phony doctorate and the rest, too

FILE - In this April 18, 2018 file photo, Bill Cosby arrives for his sexual assault trial at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown. On Thursday, April 26, 2018, Cosby was convicted of drugging and molesting a woman in the first big celebrity trial of the #MeToo era, completing the spectacular late-life downfall of a comedian who broke racial barriers in Hollywood on his way to TV superstardom as America's Dad. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)

Posted
Tuesday, May 8, 2018 11:30 pm

A Times editorial

Disgraced comic Bill Cosby, now a convicted sex offender, is losing degrees faster than a garden thermometer in a midwinter snowstorm.

Over the years, Cosby’s racked up roughly five-dozen honorary doctorates. Notre Dame, Johns Hopkins, Boston College and Carnegie Mellon have revoked his degrees from those institutions in the wake of his April 26 conviction on sexual assault charges in Pennsylvania.

North Carolina A&T State revoked the honorary degree it issued to Cosby a decade ago, and University of North Carolina Chancellor Carol Folt has asked trustees to claw back his UNC sheepskin, too.

No one could blame institutions of higher learning for wanting to distance themselves from Cosby, who jurors determined drugged and sexually assaulted Temple University official Andrea Constand. While UNC is well within its rights to disavow the honor, it’s worth asking why reputable colleges and universities routinely stamp their seals on unearned doctorates for celebrities high and petty in the first place.

The questionable practice dates to at least 1470, when no less an academic powerhouse than Oxford gave an honorary degree to a cleric who later became bishop of Salisbury. The tradition caught on and English colleges became diploma mills for earls and barons who never cracked a book or scribbled on parchment in their storied halls.

There’s a cogent case to be made for recognizing self-tutored poets, composers, authors and inventors with an honorary degree when they produce a body of work that equals or outshines that of their well-schooled peers. Call it narrowing the gap between theory and practice; a credit-by-exam program taken to its logical conclusion. But such honorees are the exception rather than the rule in modern American academia.

Too often, the doctorates are catnip for celebrities who give commencement speeches, perhaps with the hope that they’ll join the donor rolls. They’re at best a publicity stunt — glowing news stories about such actual degree recipients as Orlando Bloom, Jimmy Kimmel and Jon Bon Jovi always follow the presentations — and at worst a transparent plea for cash.

If all it takes to receive a doctorate is achieving fame and amassing wealth, what makes these degrees different from vanity awards such as “who’s who” lists and fake honor societies that induct anyone who pays for the privilege?

In a too-little-too-late effort to impose a modicum of respectability on the scheme, most colleges reserve specific distinctions for honorary degrees, such as doctor of humane letters, and ask that recipients refrain from titling themselves doctors and otherwise misrepresenting the degree.

The Associated Press Stylebook, a reference manual for journalists that most American newspapers use, counsels reporters and editors not to use the abbreviation Dr. “before the names of individuals who hold only honorary doctorates.”

Cautions to avoid confusion and impersonation aren’t always heeded. Maya Angelou and Billy Graham, whose degrees were honorary, were often referred to as doctors. Comedian and actor Denis Leary, who snagged an honorary doctorate from Emerson College in 2005, splashed “Dr. Denis Leary” on the cover of his 2009 book “Why We Suck” and the 2017 sequel “Why We Don’t Suck.”

Colleges were founded for the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, but today they exist to pass students through standardized courses and confer credentials that qualify alumni for careers. The workforce and society at large estimates the value of those credentials by the time and toil it takes to earn them. Giving out too many honorary degrees too often inflates the currency of those credentials, making them less scarce and therefore less valuable.

We’re not going to begrudge a true self-taught scholar the degree he or she earned through the proverbial School of Hard Knocks. But if writers, musicians and creators can change the world without a doctorate gathering dust on the wall, why on earth do they need one?

The Latin term for an unearned degree is one that is presented “honoris causa,” or “for the sake of honor.” The same inscription is etched on the Pulitzer Prize medallion, which is rarer and more prestigious than a run-of-the-mill doctorate. If universities want to recognize exceptional achievement, why not do so with a plaque, medal, trophy or other such award?

UNC should revoke Bill Cosby’s honorary doctorate. Then it should stop cheapening the highest degrees it confers by passing them out like awards show gifts in celebrity swag bags.